Bring on Global warming!!!

[Sanibel]

No. You are not reflecting my data correctly.


This present uprise in CO2 might contain 35% more CO2 than previously recorded rises seen in ice core samples - but what you are failing to input is this present uprise has shot up three times faster and in a sharper spike than any previously recorded increase.

That is a shock jolt to the atmosphere that wasn't caused by any natural cataclysm. It HAD to be caused by us because there was no natural cause to account for it. It would be denial to deny that it is the CO2 locked in previously subterranian fossil fuel deposits since released to the atmosphere.

People who say things like "3 degrees isn't that much" should be ignored because they obviously have no idea of what they are talking about. You are seeing the danger of shallow talk-radio politics here. 3 degrees will effectively put the polar bear to extinction. The polar bear survived all the previous natural warming cycles.


Contemplating wild reactions is like taking notes in a car that is driving over a cliff.

[Audrey2Katrina]

I guess this is an "eye of the beholder" thing. Once again, I find myself in agreement with you, Steve, as a voice of reason and logic in a maelstrom of shrill voices coming from both of the opposing ends of this controversy.

Perhaps folks who say a 3 degree shift doesn't mean much should be ignored; perhaps it would be better to try to reason with them. Certainly just blowing them off with contempt because their conclusions (however arrived at) disagree with yours will do little to temper their willingness to hear an opposing view.

For whatever it's worth, all this CO2 controversy and the dogmatic declaration that it just HAS to be all us nasty-old humans, is just as counter-productive as some very soundly based SCIENCE does stand in stark contrast to the apocalyptic viewpoints of many.

Just one example on the CO2 levels can be found here, which I believe, substantiates what you were trying to say, Steve:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/284/5421/1743b

Additionally, without cutting and pasting all the technical particulars, this is another good read on global warming and the anthropogenic controversy:

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

Of course I have no doubt that the fact that many of their figures come from US government agencies will be pounced upon as indicative that they're either invalid, biased, or both--the "shill of the administration" comes to mind. And while I will, at least, try to be objective enough to acknowledge that it is quite possible, if not probable that the government can and will skew some numbers when it serves their purpose, a LOT of the data has been gathered by professors who are NOT in the employ of the government; but who simply disagree with the alarmist viewpoint of this issue. Additionally, the point about water vapor being by far the greatest percentage of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere is beyond dispute.

Someone once said you can prove anything you want two ways: 1.) with the Bible, or 2.) with statistics....

I think they were dead on. Number-crunching isn't going to solve the riddle, and certainly casting around a bunch of ad-hominems to those who dare to espouse a differing viewpoint won't. That global warming is taking place is beyond dispute by anyone except the most narrow-minded who, if they choose to belong to the flat-earth society, more power to them. Ignorance is bliss! On the other hand, it is equally disingenuous to claim that virtually all of what is occuring is anthropogenic, and with a close-mindedness not far removed from that of the flat-earthers, disregard anything presented to the contrary.

A2K

[x-y-no]

For whatever it's worth, all this CO2 controversy and the dogmatic declaration that it just HAS to be all us nasty-old humans, is just as counter-productive as some very soundly based SCIENCE does stand in stark contrast to the apocalyptic viewpoints of many.

Well, isotopic analysis establishes clearly that very nearly all of the increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to human activity (this can be determined because fossil souces of carbon contain practically no C14, and somewhat less C13 than is the natural equilibrium in the atmosphere).

Just one example on the CO2 levels can be found here, which I believe, substantiates what you were trying to say, Steve:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/284/5421/1743b

As far as I can see, all this is saying is that there are other forcings besides GHGs. That's never been in dispute. The most significant forcing in terms of past ice age cycles appears to have been variation in insolation due to variations in the Earth's orbit and axial tilt.

Additionally, without cutting and pasting all the technical particulars, this is another good read on global warming and the anthropogenic controversy:

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

This article suffers from a very major flaw in that it fails to recognize that water vapor is a feedback not a forcing. The average lifetime of a forced perturbation in water vapor is a mere few days (take all the water vapor out of the atmosphere - or double it - in any decent weather or climate model, and it'll be back to normal in less than two weeks).

By contrast, the average lifetime of a perturbation in atmospheric methane is somewhere around a decade, and for CO2 it's a couple of centuries.

But when you warm the atmosphere slightly (by increasing CO2 or methane or insolation or whatever) the relative humidity goes down, evaporation goes up in response, and eventually you get to a new equilibrium at a higher WV content (and temperature). Hence, it's a feedback. So while it's technically true to say that WV is a more important greenhouse gas than CO2 or methane, it's meaningless in any real sense because WV will always respond in this rapid fashion to any forcing.

Of course I have no doubt that the fact that many of their figures come from US government agencies will be pounced upon as indicative that they're either invalid, biased, or both--the "shill of the administration" comes to mind. And while I will, at least, try to be objective enough to acknowledge that it is quite possible, if not probable that the government can and will skew some numbers when it serves their purpose, a LOT of the data has been gathered by professors who are NOT in the employ of the government; but who simply disagree with the alarmist viewpoint of this issue. Additionally, the point about water vapor being by far the greatest percentage of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere is beyond dispute.

Nope. My problem is not with the use of figures from government agencies. My problem is with the completely erroneous analysis.

[Audrey2Katrina]

I suppose one man's analysis, is another's folly... c'est la vie:

The Water Vapor analysis is essentially a non-sequitur; the point remains valid that it still constitutes the vast majority of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere, some 3% of air by volume as opposed to current CO2 levels, some 1/30 of 1 % of air by volume, and the wavelength of the EMS absorbed is a much narrower band than that of water vapor. Granted your point of perturbations is well articulated, and valid inasmuch as this is the engine by which global warming, according to its adherents, is most likely being fueled, and I concede the undeniable fact that CO2 is a much more efficient retainer of that infrared energy than water vapor--but the water vapor still becomes a major key (if not THE) in the entire scenario, as the most popular theories espouse the concept that it is oceanic absorption of this CO2 that is pivotal--by doing so oceans become warmer, MORE water vapor created, and further CO2 absorption is inhibited--"feedback"...and the beat goes on. Like I said, I'm open-minded on the issue; it's just that I've read and studied enough on it from both sides to believe that any dogmatic declaration on it being wholly, or even substantially anthropogenic is not a fact accompli.

One major problem with analyses is the construction of a virtually certain model. Most objective and intellectually honest scientists will readily concede that such a construct at this point in time, while feasible in the not-too-distant future, is simply not in place, hence the dispute over whether or not the actual global warming is indeed "anthropogenic" to a degree of significance.

The mention of a lack of isotopic C14 in the fossil record, while noteworthy, could equally be an inconsequential argument--way too many unknowns there. Perhaps transmutation accounts for some of this--perhaps not, as this is not something I've delved into deeply, but rest assured you've made me aware of a facet I will research further. Beyond that, maybe I'm just idealistic; but I don't believe all those scientists out there espousing a different viewpoint are all shills of the government, or the oil company and industrial complex to not have scientifically valid reasons for holding the positions they espouse.

I appreciate your position, X-Y, as it is obviously well researched and articulated; I simply am not ready to accept all of its conclusions. I most respectfully (sincerely) agree to disagree, at this time. But I WILL look into it further!

Nope. My problem is not with the use of figures from government agencies. My problem is with the completely erroneous analysis

I'm sure the scientists who come to a different concluion have the same viewpoint of analyses such as you've presented.

Thanks for some thought provoking insights

A2K

[Sanibel]

I see a lot of words there but don't really see anything that attempted to answer the point I made.

I find it straining for people to say things like "some will automatically accuse the administration of political bias" when we are talking about one of the most-one sided and biased administrations in the US's history.

The WV issue sounds like a red herring to me.

For whatever it's worth, all this CO2 controversy and the dogmatic declaration that it just HAS to be all us nasty-old humans, is just as counter-productive as some very soundly based SCIENCE does stand in stark contrast to the apocalyptic viewpoints of many.

People have short memories. Around 20 years ago nice, polite, middle of the roaders were telling us some very sound science was telling us Global Warming wasn't real...

but I don't believe all those scientists out there espousing a different viewpoint are all shills of the government, or the oil company and industrial complex to not have scientifically valid reasons for holding the positions they espouse.

Come out with a serious warning that the funders are responsible for the problem and only funding science that eases blame and see what happens to you. Again, the budget of all the environmental groups in the US is less than $5 million. Establishment funding is billions with a stake in the verdict. That, to me, is an irrecoverable conflict of interest.

[Audrey2Katrina]

I find it straining for people to say things like "some will automatically accuse the administration of political bias" when we are talking about one of the most-one sided and biased administrations in the US's history.

I find that extremely politically inflamatory... clearly there is absolutely no objectivity here...end of subject



A2K

[Audrey2Katrina]

People have short memories. Around 20 years ago nice, polite, middle of the roaders were telling us some very sound science was telling us Global Warming wasn't real...

indeed they do, as some people who advocated strongly the GW concept were saying that by the year 2000 cities like New York, Miami, and huge areas of the coast would all be submerged... cuts both ways.

A2K

[Aslkahuna]

That's the problem with discussions of this nature, up to now we've had a fairly wide ranging spirited discussion about Global Warming and now the dreaded "P" word comes up. This has been an issue for some time so let's not drag the current or any other administration into the mix and stick to discussing the science behind the issue as we have been doing.

Steve

[x-y-no]

People have short memories. Around 20 years ago nice, polite, middle of the roaders were telling us some very sound science was telling us Global Warming wasn't real...

indeed they do, as some people who advocated strongly the GW concept were saying that by the year 2000 cities like New York, Miami, and huge areas of the coast would all be submerged... cuts both ways.

A2K

"some people"


Nobody serious suggested anything of the sort.

[Audrey2Katrina]

"some people"


Nobody serious suggested anything of the sort.

Umm, I was there, and yes they did!

A2K

[Audrey2Katrina]

Someone earlier claimed that hucksters predicting another ice-age never REALLY existed either--the facts belie the claim. In the first place, I remember reading that drivel as a youngster, and there actually IS data to prove that there were many bon-fide SCIENCE and scientist journals who were making this patently false prediction.

Science magazine (Dec. 10, 1976) warned of "extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation." Science Digest (February 1973) reported that "the world's climatologists are agreed" that we must "prepare for the next ice age."

Was there universal accord? No, of course not--as there is NOT universal accord on the gloom-and-doom we're all gonna flood/drought/die from global warming scenario either.

A2K

[x-y-no]

"some people"


Nobody serious suggested anything of the sort.

Umm, I was there, and yes they did!

A2K

OK, name some names, and give us some quotes.

I've been pretty connected with the state of the AGW issue since its inception, and I can't recall anyone serious predicting significant sea-level rise by the year 2000. Not a one.

[x-y-no]

Someone earlier claimed that hucksters predicting another ice-age never REALLY existed either--the facts belie the claim. In the first place, I remember reading that drivel as a youngster, and there actually IS data to prove that there were many bon-fide SCIENCE and scientist journals who were making this patently false prediction.

I'm sorry, but if you read that drivel, it was in the popular press, not in any scientific publication. I was around a number of the prominent climate scientists/physical oceanographers at that time, and I can attest that there was absolutely no serious belief that we were rapidly headed towards a cooler regime, and there was absolutely no body of peer-reviewed research suggesting that.

Science magazine (Dec. 10, 1976) warned of "extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation."

See, this is the problem with accepting citations without actually looking them up. George Will (and others) offered this as evidence of the alleged scientific consensus of an imminent ice age. But here's that quote in context:

Future climate. Having presented evidence that major changes in past climate were associated with variations in the geometry of the earth's orbit, we should be able to predict the trend of future climate. Such forecasts must be qualified in two ways. First, they apply only to the natural component of future climatic trends - and not to anthropogenic effects such as those due to the burning of fossil fuels. Second, they describe only the long-term trends, because they are linked to orbital variations with periods of 20,000 years and longer. Climatic oscillations at higher frequencies are not predicted.

One approach to forecasting the natural long-term climate trend is to estimate the time constants of response necessary to explain the observed phase relationships between orbital variation and climatic change, and then to use those time constants in the exponential-response model. When such a model is applied to Vernekar's (39) astronomical projections, the results indicate that the long-term trend over the next 20,000 years is towards extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation and cooler climate (80).

(emphasis mine)

Now just exactly how do you spin "long-term trend over the next 20,000 years" to mean they were predicting an imminent ice age?

If you really are open-minded, you might want to consider why it is that the sceptics find it neccesary to resort to such misrepresentation. You might want to start looking really critically at other claims made by those who got something this simple so completely wrong.

Science Digest (February 1973) reported that "the world's climatologists are agreed" that we must "prepare for the next ice age."

And here's that quote in context:

At this point the world's climatologists are agreed that we do not have tens of thousands of years to prepare for the next ice age and that how carefully we monitor our atmospheric pollution will have a direct effect on the arrival and nature of this weather crisis. The sooner man confronts these facts the safer he will be.

Note how the part about "tens of thousands of years" was removed in order to distort this from what was in fact a very moderate stement about the sensitivity of climate to human activity into an alarmist claim of an imminent ice age.

Again, I'd ask you to consider carefully why sceptics find it neccesary to engage in such distortions, and to remember these examples before you uncritically accept their claims in the future.

Was there universal accord? No, of course not--as there is NOT universal accord on the gloom-and-doom we're all gonna flood/drought/die from global warming scenario either.

A2K

I don't accept yourt politically charged characterization. But at any rate, there simply is no comparison between the consideration of possible oncoming cooling which may have existed in the '70s and the vast body of real science supporting the AGW theory today. None whatsoever.

[Audrey2Katrina]

OK, name some names, and give us some quotes.

I've been pretty connected with the state of the AGW issue since its inception, and I can't recall anyone serious predicting significant sea-level rise by the year 2000. Not a one.

That's what's known in propaganda circles as an appeal to ignorance--if you can't prove your point, mine is right. Doesn't work and is illogical as well. I'm not doubting your credentials one bit; but I DO know what I saw in magazines and yes, even school textbooks from that time. I've been in education for over 30 years and there's not a scintilla of doubt about what I had seen. Pictures showing NYC as a seascape with the skyscrapers piercing the water horizon were were definitely shown in diverse periodicals back then, I saw them, and simply because I can't produce them 36 years or so after the fact by no means suggests they didn't exist--they did. If this makes you feel assured they are mythical, so be it. I can't and won't convince you; still, I know what I saw.

As a kid in school in the late 50's and early 60's I most DEFINITELY recall all the talk about an impending "ice-age" IN the SCIENCE class, and in the texts... you can talk about all the scientists you've spoken to that you wish... it still won't change what was definitely being cited back then.

A2K

[Audrey2Katrina]

Quote:

At this point the world's climatologists are agreed that we do not have tens of thousands of years to prepare for the next ice age and that how carefully we monitor our atmospheric pollution will have a direct effect on the arrival and nature of this weather crisis. The sooner man confronts these facts the safer he will be.



Note how the part about "tens of thousands of years" was removed in order to distort this from what was in fact a very moderate stement about the sensitivity of climate to human activity into an alarmist claim of an imminent ice age.

Actually, eye-of-the-beholder, I DO see scientists saying just that: We DO NOT have tens of thousands of years...hence a much more immediate problem to confront...The full context IMO seems to confirm this. We do NOT have thousands of years to prepare--the problem is therefore MUCH more imminent. While you have a valid gripe about the first quote, on this one, it appears you are the one employing spin.

A2K

[x-y-no]

Whatever, A2K.

The scientific literature, particularly peer-reviewed journals, are an open book. If anything like the claimed scientific consensus about an impending ice age had really existed, then one of those ardent skeptics out there would have found abundant evidence of it, and they wouldn't be relying on selective quoting to distort the meaning of a few articles.

I note that while you find a way to stretch interpretation in order to forgive Will's selective deletion in the second quote, you don't offer any explanation for how "When such a model is applied to Vernekar's astronomical projections, the results indicate that the long-term trend over the next 20,000 years is towards extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation and cooler climate" can fairly be interpreted to be a warning of an imminent ice age (or why "Science Magazine ... warned of 'extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation'" is a fair extraction from that context). I think in fairness you ought to address that rather than merely ignoring a point which contradicts your thesis.

The point is that there's a pattern of deliberate distortion on the part of many skeptics, and a I think it's a fair question to ask why that is and why so many continue to uncritically quote the arguments of people who have been shown to be engaging in such distortion. I don't ask that you automatically dismiss their arguments, but rather that you look at them real hard, especially given the history of prior distortions.

I would love to spend my time on this issue discussing the real open questions about AGW - but instead I find myself debunking the same false claims ad nauseum. And no matter how many times I do that, a little time goes by and then there they are again. It's depressing, really.


EDIT:

Just one more response ... you wrote

Pictures showing NYC as a seascape with the skyscrapers piercing the water horizon were were definitely shown in diverse periodicals back then, I saw them, and simply because I can't produce them 36 years or so after the fact by no means suggests they didn't exist--they did.

This fits exactly with my statement that "if you read that drivel it was in the popular press, not the scientific literature".

I could show you all kinds of wild stuff in the popular literature - including wild stuff written by reputable scientists. But that doesn't mean there's a real scientific consensus (or even serious scientific consideration) of ideas like teleportation of living beings, or time travel, or alien abduction or whatever. You call foul at my request for names and quotes, well I call foul on a claim of scientific consensus in the absence of any body of published, peer-reviewed research.

[Audrey2Katrina]

Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I find some of his comments in an article (granted it was some 12 years ago; but the subject matter is still germaine) to be quite enlightening--certainly he is no slouch when it comes to studies of climatology, and neither are many of his peers her cites and refers to who have been all but effectively "silenced" by the alarmists in the global warming controversy:

"Most of the literate world today regards "global warming'' as both real and dangerous. Indeed, the diplomatic activity concerning warming might lead one to believe that it is the major crisis confronting mankind. The June 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, focused on international agreements to deal with that threat, and the heads of state from dozens of countries attended. I must state at the outset, that, as a scientist, I can find no substantive basis for the warming scenarios being popularly described. Moreover, according to many studies I have read by economists, agronomists, and hydrologists, there would be little difficulty adapting to such warming if it were to occur. Such was also the conclusion of the recent National Research Council's report on adapting to global change. Many aspects of the catastrophic scenario have already been largely discounted by the scientific community. For example, fears of massive sea-level increases accompanied many of the early discussions of global warming, but those estimates have been steadily reduced by orders of magnitude, and now it is widely agreed that even the potential contribution of warming to sea-level rise would be swamped by other more important factors."

Later he states:

"Internal processes within the climate system that change in response to warming in such a manner as to amplify the response are known as positive feedbacks. Internal processes that diminish the response are known as negative feedbacks. The most important positive feedback in current models is due to water vapor. In all current models upper tropospheric (five to twelve kilometers) water vapor--the major greenhouse gas--increases as surface temperatures increase. Without that feedback, no current model would predict warming in excess of 1.7 degrees centigrade--regardless of any other factors. Unfortunately, the way current models handle factors such as clouds and water vapor is disturbingly arbitrary. In many instances the underlying physics is simply not known. In other instances there are identifiable errors. Even computational errors play a major role. Indeed, there is compelling evidence for all the known feedback factors to actually be negative. In that case, we would expect the warming response to carbon dioxide doubling alone to be diminished."

Further:

"If one considers the tropics, that conclusion is even more disturbing. There is ample evidence that the average equatorial sea surface has remained within plus or minus one degree centigrade of its present temperature for billions of years, yet current models predict average warming of from two to four degrees centigrade even at the equator. It should be noted that for much of the Earth's history, the atmosphere had much more carbon dioxide than is currently anticipated for centuries to come. I could, in fact, go on at great length listing the evidence for small responses to a doubling of carbon dioxide; there are space constraints, however."

Concerning the potential GW "INDUSTRY"

"The present hysteria formally began in the summer of 1988, although preparations had been put in place at least three years earlier. That was an especially warm summer in some regions, particularly in the United States. The abrupt increase in temperature in the late 1970s was too abrupt to be associated with the smooth increase in carbon dioxide. Nevertheless, James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in testimony before Sen. Al Gore's Committee on Science, Technology and Space, said, in effect, that he was 99 percent certain that temperature had increased and that there was some greenhouse warming. He made no statement concerning the relation between the two.
Despite the fact that those remarks were virtually meaningless, they led the environmental advocacy movement to adopt the issue immediately. The growth of environmental advocacy since the 1970s has been phenomenal. In Europe the movement centered on the formation of Green parties; in the United States the movement centered on the development of large public interest advocacy groups. Those lobbying groups have budgets of several hundred million dollars and employ about 50,000 people; their support is highly valued by many political figures. As with any large groups, self-perpetuation becomes a crucial concern. "Global warming'' has become one of the major battle cries in their fundraising efforts. At the same time, the media unquestioningly accept the pronouncements of those groups as objective truth."

Regarding censorship, spin, and outright distortions:

"As most scientists concerned with climate, I was eager to stay out of what seemed like a public circus. But in the summer of 1988 Lester Lave, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote to me about being dismissed from a Senate hearing for suggesting that the issue of global warming was scientifically controversial. I assured him that the issue was not only controversial but also unlikely. In the winter of 1989 Reginald Newell, a professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, lost National Science Foundation funding for data analyses that were failing to show net warming over the past century. Reviewers suggested that his results were dangerous to humanity. In the spring of 1989 I was an invited participant at a global warming symposium at Tufts University. I was the only scientist among a panel of environmentalists. There were strident calls for immediate action and ample expressions of impatience with science. Claudine Schneider, then a congressman from Rhode Island, acknowledged that "scientists may disagree, but we can hear Mother Earth, and she is crying.'' It seemed clear to me that a very dangerous situation was arising, and the danger was not of "global warming'' itself."
He continues:
"In the spring of 1989 I prepared a critique of global warming, which I submitted to Science, a magazine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The paper was rejected without review as being of no interest to the readership. I then submitted the paper to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, where it was accepted after review, rereviewed, and reaccepted--an unusual procedure to say the least. In the meantime, the paper was attacked in Science before it had even been published. The paper circulated for about six months as samizdat. It was delivered at a Humboldt conference at M.I.T. and reprinted in the Frankfurter Allgemeine.

In the meantime, the global warming circus was in full swing. Meetings were going on nonstop. One of the more striking of those meetings was hosted in the summer of 1989 by Robert Redford at his ranch in Sundance, Utah. Redford proclaimed that it was time to stop research and begin acting. I suppose that that was a reasonable suggestion for an actor to make, but it is also indicative of the overall attitude toward science. Barbara Streisand personally undertook to support the research of Michael Oppenheimer at the Environmental Defense Fund, although he is primarily an advocate and not a climatologist. Meryl Streep made an appeal on public television to stop warming. A bill was even prepared to guarantee Americans a stable climate."

And talk about taking scientists "out of context" and parsing their words:

"Indeed, the growing skepticism is in many ways remarkable. One of the earliest protagonists of global warming, Roger Revelle, the late professor of ocean sciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography who initiated the direct monitoring of carbon dioxide during the International Geophysical Year (1958), coauthored with S. Fred Singer and Chauncy Starr a paper recommending that action concerning global warming be delayed insofar as current knowledge was totally inadequate. Another active advocate of global warming, Michael McElroy, head of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard, has recently written a paper acknowledging that existing models cannot be used to forecast climate.
One might think that such growing skepticism would have some influence on public debate, but the insistence on "scientific unanimity'' continues unabated. At times, that insistence takes some very strange forms. Over a year ago, Robert White, former head of the U.S. Weather Bureau and currently president of the National Academy of Engineering, wrote an article for Scientific American that pointed out that the questionable scientific basis for global warming predictions was totally inadequate to justify any costly actions. He did state that if one were to insist on doing something, one should only do things that one would do even if there were no warming threat. Immediately after that article appeared, Tom Wicker, a New York Times columnist and a confidant of Sen. Gore, wrote a piece in which he stated that White had called for immediate action on "global warming.'' My own experiences have been similar. In an article in Audubon Stephen Schneider states that I have "conceded that some warming now appears inevitable.'' Differences between expectations of unmeasurable changes of a few tenths of a degree and warming of several degrees are conveniently ignored. Karen White in a lengthy and laudatory article on James Hansen that appeared in the New York Times Sunday Magazine reported that even I agreed that there would be warming, having "reluctantly offered an estimate of 1.2 degrees.'' That was, of course, untrue."

He adds this toward the close of the article:

"So far I have emphasized the political elements in the current climate hysteria. There can be no question, however, that scientists are abetting this situation. Concerns about funding have already been mentioned. There is, however, another perhaps more important element to the scientific support. The existence of modern computing power has led to innumerable modelling efforts in many fields. Supercomputers have allowed us to consider the behavior of systems seemingly too complex for other approaches. One of those systems is climate. Not surprisingly, there are many problems involved in modelling climate. For example, even supercomputers are inadequate to allow long-term integrations of the relevant equations at adequate spatial resolutions. At presently available resolutions, it is unlikely that the computer solutions are close to the solutions of the underlying equations. In addition, the physics of unresolved phenomena such as clouds and other turbulent elements is not understood to the extent needed for incorporation into models. In view of those problems, it is generally recognized that models are at present experimental tools whose relation to the real world is questionable."

And finally, in a much more recent article, the so-called "consensus" among all scientists about both GW and particularly AGW is blown apart:

"Scientists Issue Dire Prediction on Warming" blares the lead headline in the January 23 Washington Post. The earth’s temperature could rise by as much 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 and sea levels could rise by 34 inches, warns the Post. The headline and the data derive from the new "Summary for Policymakers," just issued by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has been meeting in Shanghai. In 1995, the last time the IPCC officially predicted the 21st century’s weather, the maximum projected temperature increase was just 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit. So things must be really heating up fast, right?

Not exactly. "The catastrophic warming projections are based on one set of scenarios that are way off the chart," says John Christy, a professor of Atmospheric Science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama at Huntsville.'"

There ARE bona-fide meteorological, and climatological experts who simply do NOT buy into the AGW scenario, or at the very least, not to the extent that the gloom-and-doom predictors, looking for more funding, are predisposed to foist on the public and politicians only too eager to feed them by dint of the public's Fortunado's purse!

A2K

[Audrey2Katrina]

I note that while you find a way to stretch interpretation in order to forgive Will's selective deletion in the second quote, you don't offer any explanation for how "When such a model is applied to Vernekar's astronomical projections, the results indicate that the long-term trend over the next 20,000 years is towards extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation and cooler climate" can fairly be interpreted to be a warning of an imminent ice age (or why "Science Magazine ... warned of 'extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation'" is a fair extraction from that context). I think in fairness you ought to address that rather than merely ignoring a point which contradicts your thesis.

The fact is I DID... I said you had a legitimate gripe with the first quote; but on the other hand it was YOU parsing the words in the second one, wherein a bona-fide scientific journal said "we DO NOT have thousands of years..." this clearly denoted a much more iminent threat which you did not address.

A2K

[Audrey2Katrina]

I could show you all kinds of wild stuff in the popular literature - including wild stuff written by reputable scientists. But that doesn't mean there's a real scientific consensus (or even serious scientific consideration) of ideas like teleportation of living beings, or time travel, or alien abduction or whatever. You call foul at my request for names and quotes, well I call foul on a claim of scientific consensus in the absence of any body of published, peer-reviewed research.

On this we actually agree... because I do NOT feel there ever has been, or WILL be a consensus on this issue.

A2K

[x-y-no]

The fact is I DID... I said you had a legitimate gripe with the first quote;

OK, I missed that. Sorry.

... but on the other hand it was YOU parsing the words in the second one, wherein a bona-fide scientific journal said "we DO NOT have thousands of years..." this clearly denoted a much more iminent threat which you did not address.

A2K

I guess I'll forego the argument about whether "Science Digest" qualified as a "bona-fide scientific journal" (my recollection is it was more of a science news magazine) ...

Actually, it said "tens of thousands of years". I really don't see how offering the full quote is "parsing the words" on my part, while cutting out the reference to the timeframe is kosher on Will's part. To me, the selection made significantly changes the meaning. Furthermore, he lifts "prepare for the next ice age" out of its prepositional phrase and prepends it with "we must" which seems again to significantly modify the meaning.

I'm really trying, but I don't see how one can interpret that full quote as being alarmist or stating definitively that an ice age is imminent. "We do not have tens of thousands of years" still leaves an awful lot of room - up to 19,999 years in fact. Certainly it leaves as entirely probable that the timescale was still thousands of years.

And the fact remains that the current concern over anthropogenic warming is not in any way inconsistant with these earlier statements. It's absolutely true, as the first quote said, that orbital mechanics dictates that we would naturally be headed towards an ice age on the timescale of 20,000 years or so. And it's absolutely true, as the second quote indicated, that human activity has impact on climate. That particular point was about aerosols and cooling, but it's also true about GHGs and warming.